Stanford University

Using Climate Models to Improve Indonesian Food Security

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El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events exert significant influence on Southeast Asian rice output and markets. This paper measures ENSO effects on Indonesia's national and regional rice production and on world rice prices, using the August Niño 3.4 sea surface temperature anomaly (SSTA) to gauge climate variability. It shows that each degree Celsius change in the August SSTA produces a 1,318,000 metric ton effect on output and a $21/metric ton change in the world price for lower quality rice. Of the inter-annual production changes due to SSTA variation, 90% occur within 12 provinces, notably Java and South Sulawesi. New data and models offer opportunities to understand the agricultural effects of ENSO events, to reach early consensus on coming ENSO effects, and to use forecasting to improve agencies' and individuals' capacity to mitigate climate effects on food security. We propose that Indonesia hold an "ENSO summit" each September to analyse the food-security implications of upcoming climate events.

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Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies
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Rosamond L. Naylor
Whitney L. Smith
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Forgotten Lessons of Helsinki: Human Rights and U.S.-North Korean Relations

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In developing a strategy toward North Korea, many human rights activists and members of U.S. Congress have mistakenly applied experiences drawn from East-West relations during the Cold War. The recent culmination of this strategy, the congressional passage of the North Korea Human Rights Act, has only compounded this mistaken interpretation. Unlike Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union of the 1970s and 80s, North Korea possesses no civil society, critical intelligentsia, or significant variant of "reform communism." There are no opportunities for civil society actors to connect with indigenous democratic movements. Furthermore, attempts to "link" any security or arms control deals with North Korea to improvements in the human rights realm -- as the recent legislation tries to do -- will likely result in neither greater security nor improved human rights conditions.

John Feffer is a Pantech Fellow at the Korea Studies Program at Stanford University and the author of North Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories Press, 2003) and Shock Waves: Eastern Europe After the Revolutions (South End Press, 1992).

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World Policy Journal
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Adaptive parties: party strategic capacity under Japanese SNTV

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What shapes a party's ability to act strategically? We address this question by examining nomination behavior under Japanese SNTV/MMD, a system offering data that overcome the shortcomings of measurement error and static analysis that plague empirical research on party strategy. We run a series of generalized event counts (GEC) to model the number of candidates each Japanese political camp nominated at the district level in eleven different elections. The number of nominees is a highly strategic decision under SNTV, resulting in a statistical anomaly: an underdispersed event count variable. Based on the GEC results, our principal substantive finding is that parties are not as strategically capable as the existing scholarly literature claims. Even when parties are willing to act as a unified strategic group, informational uncertainty may leave them unable to do so. We also find that, despite factors that should have mitigated against strategic capacity, both ruling and opposition parties in Japan frequently responded to one another by seeking to take advantage of their opponents' strategic errors.

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Electoral Studies
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Kinuyo Tanaka Film Series: Sandakan 8 (1974)

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Directed by Kei Kumai. Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Kamaki Kurihara, Yoko Takahashi.

One of Tanaka's final roles, it typifies the kind of film made during the last years of her career when she went out of her way to appear in smaller, less mainstream projects. With Sandakan 8, Tanaka reaped rewards for her creative risk-taking. She received the prestigious Golden Bear acting prize at the Berlin Film Festival for her performance as a former "Karayuki-san" (women coerced into working as prostitutes in Southeast Asian during the Japanese occupation). One of the few Japanese films ever to deal with this explosive, and still controversial, legacy from WWII.

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General Public Welcome

All Prints 35mm, with English Subtitles

Program Includes Films Rarely Screened Outside Japan

Cubberley Auditorium

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Kinuyo Tanaka Film Series: Red Beard (1965)

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Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Starring Toshiro Mifune, Yuzo Kayama, Tsutomu Yamazaki, Kinuyo Tanaka.

A historical drama directed by America's favorite Japanese director. Probably Kurosawa's finest film from the 1960s, Red Beard recounts the career of an Edo period physician. A classic Kurosawa epic, with big production values, innovative editing, and sweeping cinematography. The only film Tanaka made with Kurosawa.

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General Public Welcome

All Prints 35mm, with English Subtitles

Program Includes Films Rarely Screened Outside Japan

Cubberley Auditorium

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Kinuyo Tanaka Film Series: Flowing (1956)

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Directed by Mikio Naruse. Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Isuzu Yamada, Hideko Takamine, Haruko Sugimura, Sumiko Kurishima.

Based on a novel by Aya Koda, Flowing is not only the best film of Naruse's long career, but also one of the most artful examples of a film adaptation of a literary work (Naruse's specialty). Starring some of Japan's leading actresses of the 1950s, the film offers a stark portrait of a fading geisha house as seen through the eyes of its maid, played by Tanaka.

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General Public Welcome

All Prints 35mm, with English Subtitles

Program Includes Films Rarely Screened Outside Japan

Cubberley Auditorium

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Kinuyo Tanaka Film Series: The Moon Has Risen (1955)

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Directed by Kinuyo Tanaka. Starring Chishu Ryu, Hisako Yamane.

The most successful of Tanaka's six directorial efforts (and apparently, based on forays into Tanaka chat rooms, a film still cherished by her diehard fans). Made in collaboration with Yasujiro Ozu, who composed the script, the film is a gentle domestic comedy about a widowed mother and her two daughters. Tanaka appears in a bit part as the family's maid.

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General Public Welcome

All Prints 35mm, with English Subtitles

Program Includes Films Rarely Screened Outside Japan

Cubberley Auditorium

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Kinuyo Tanaka Film Series: Ugetsu (1953)

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Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi. Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Machiko Kyo, Masayuki Mori

Hailed by many as one of the most beautiful films ever made, and certainly the highpoint of Mizoguchi's stellar career. One of the first Japanese films to attract international attention in the 1950s. Visually stunning and emotionally affecting. A haunting ghost story, with Tanaka as a murdered wife who returns from the dead for one more meeting with her feckless husband.

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General Public Welcome

All Prints 35mm, with English Subtitles

Program Includes Films Rarely Screened Outside Japan

Cubberley Auditorium

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Kinuyo Tanaka Film Series: The Army (1944)

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Directed by Keisuke Kinoshita. Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Chishu Ryu, Ken Mizuda.

Kinoshita's third film, and thought to be one of the best Japanese propaganda pieces made during WWII. Noted for its remarkable final scene, which is undeniably one of the most poignant (and manipulative) representations of home-front sacrifice ever captured on film. Tanaka plays the patriotic mother of a young army recruit.

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General Public Welcome

All Prints 35mm, with English Subtitles

Program Includes Films Rarely Screened Outside Japan

Cubberley Auditorium

Conferences

Kinuyo Tanaka Film Series: Tale of Shunkin (1935)

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Directed by Yasujiro Shimazu. Starring Kinuyo Tanaka, Kokichi Takada.

A superlative film adaptation of a novel by Junichiro Tanizaki, depicting the subtly sadomasochistic relationship between a haughty musician and her faithful servant. This romantic melodrama typifies the kind of program piece that Tanaka starred in during her heyday as the leading box-office star of the 1930s. Released by Shochiku, the film also represents the distinctive "look" associated with that studio in the years before WWII.

All Prints 35mm, with English Subtitles

Program Includes Films Rarely Screened Outside Japan

Cubberley Auditorium

Conferences
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